


19 steps to restore someone's stolen property

by sevenofspade



Category: Kalevala - Elias Lönnrot, Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2017-12-10 05:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenofspade/pseuds/sevenofspade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zatanna and Artemis take a road-trip through the realms of Suomi on the say-so of a witch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	19 steps to restore someone's stolen property

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts).



> I had great fun writing this pinch-hit and I hope you enjoy reading it.
> 
> No knowledge of Kalevala canon should be necessary.
> 
> This takes place towards the end of the five year break between Young Justice season 1 and Young Justice season 2.

Step 1 to restore someone’s stolen property: Contact the appropriate authorities

 

“Let me tell you a story,” the woman said. She was ageless, in the way that old people sometimes get and could have been anywhere from sixty to two hundred or more.

 

There was only one thing Zatanna could say to that. “No. And get out of my house.”

 

"I know of a way to ease your pain," the woman said.

 

"I can handle pain," Zatanna replied.

 

"I can grant you a boon, a wish, your heart's deepest desire and all I ask in exchange, all you have to do is what is right and return to me what is mine," said the woman. "I can give you your father back, drive out the good Doctor Fate."

 

"Who are you?" Zatanna could feel the mystic energies rolling off the woman like a snowstorm.

 

The woman said, "I am Louhi. No doubt you've heard of me."

 

Zatanna had.

 

“I am the witch of the dark woods, the shadow queen of Pohjola. I am the mistress of Lapland. I am Louhi and I have been wronged. I have been stolen from. The Sampo is mine by rights. For years, I believed the Sampo destroyed, but it was a trick by vile Väinämöinen.”

 

Zatanna felt the world shift slightly, the feel of ozone on her tongue and the taste of blood down her throat. Things were now real that had not been and things were now not that had been.

 

"Ilmarinen forged the Sampo as brideprice for my eldest daughter," Louhi said.

 

"Brideprice," Zatanna said.

 

"You may call it a dowry if you like. It is the price Ilmarinen paid to marry the maiden of Pohjola. Cast whatever aspersions you want, I have little care for your morals. It was in another place, in another time and a contract is a contract, a promise a promise. I never made my daughter turn into a fish to avoid marriage," Louhi said.

 

There was a story there, Zatanna knew but she decided not to ask. People like Louhi, the myths and legends made flesh, have more stories than they need.

 

“This Sampo,” Zatanna asked, “what does it look like?”

 

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Louhi said and was gone.

 

~*~

 

Step 2 to restore someone’s stolen property: Get an ally

 

“I hate cryptic pronouncements,” Zatanna said.

 

“Hear, hear,” Artemis said, clinking her glass with Zatanna’s. It was their monthly crime-and-wine night, and having gone through the crime portion of it they were now steadily ploughing through the wine part, which will almost certainly account for the events that followed. “What brought this on?”

 

“I made a deal that’s not really a deal. I find this thing for that woman and she’ll save my father from Doctor Fate.” Zatanna drank.

 

“You believe her?” Artemis asked. It was a reasonable question given that Doctor Fate had routinely claimed that no mortal could displace him.

 

Zatanna shrugged. “Not sure. Still gotta help her find that thing though, it’s hers. Want to help?”

 

Artemis drank. “Sure,” she finally said.

 

~*~

 

Step 3 to restore someone’s stolen property: Contact master thief.

 

Catwoman did not seem particularly worried to have two teenaged superheroes in her neighbourhood.

 

“I’m afraid I can’t help,” she said. “I’d have to know where it is before I can steal it. Knowing what it looks like wouldn’t hurt either.”

 

Zatanna looked sad. This case involved her dad and Zee was never rational about these things, Artemis knew. “Hey, Zee, do you mind heading out without me?” Artemis said.

 

Zatanna went and Artemis would have to call her in the morning to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid in the interim, like call up Klarion for a booty-call, because Artemis was never going through that particular brain bleach worthy experience ever again, please and thank you.

 

“Look, Selina, can I call you Selina? Of course I can. This is really important. This is so important, I’ll talk to Batman about letting you off easy if you help,” Artemis said.

 

“I’ll ask around and see what I can do,” Selina said.

 

~*~

Step 4 to restore someone’s stolen property: (Re-)Find an ally

 

Zatanna was fine and Klarion wasn’t there so Artemis counted it as a win. There was countless magical arrays all over the floor of Zee’s apartment and that was somewhat worrying.

 

“What are you doing,” Artemis said. She didn’t really expect an answer. Sometimes Zatanna lost herself for days trying to find something, anything, that would bring her father back.

 

“I’m going to Pohjola,” Zatanna said, like that made perfect sense.

 

“You’re going where why?” Artemis asked, because it didn’t.

 

“Louhi’s from Pohjola and so’s the Sampo so we’re going and investigating.” Zatanna giggled, high-pitched, the way she sometimes did when she was very very drunk. That would explain why there are empty bottles on the floor.

 

“We are no state to investigate anything,” Artemis said. They really really were not. They really should have been sleeping and hoping that Zatanna would have been able to say “Revognah, og yawa” when she woke up.

 

~*~

 

Step 5 to restore someone’s stolen property: Travel to shadowy mystical realm

 

Zatanna's fifty-seventh array finally worked. Pinpointing a reasonable plane for Pohjola to be in had proven complicated. It hadn’t been that the lore didn’t agree nor that it made no sense, but more that the lore was a bit vague and vastly improved by the consumption of great quantities of alcohol.

 

In the end, she’d just gone for the recurring motif and anchored the other end of the teleportation spell to the shadows of Pohjola, the darkness of Sariola.

 

Zatanna and Artemis were unceremoniously dropped into the ruins of a great hall.

 

The hall was huge enough that, had it been whole and a dog barking at one end, you would not have heard it on the other end.

 

It was broken, once, a long time ago and the land that bore it broke with it. Gone the treasures of Pohjola, gone the wealth of Sariola, gone the glory, gone the feasts, gone the mages, singers of great spells. All gone and turned to dust.

 

~*~

 

Step 6 to restore someone’s stolen property: Talk to fish

 

The river was grey with ash, the stream filled with embers, but the fish didn’t seem to care.

 

“Hello, fish,” Zatanna said. She must have been drunker than she thought to start talking to random animals.

 

The fish answered her, so that was alright. “Hello, magician. What brings you so far from home, in the recesses of Pohjola?”

 

“I am looking for the Sampo, property of Louhi, stolen by vile Väinämöinen,” Zatanna said.

 

“I hold little love for Louhi, who lets me tread her waters freely and does not often try to catch save when she recruits others to do so. I am Aino, spirit of the cascade, who was once Aino, fair maiden of Suvantola. I hold nothing but grief and hatred, anger and rage, for Väinämöinen, brother-slayer, bride-kidnapper,” said Aino who turned into a fish to avoid marriage. “If I can hurt him, I will. Tell me of what you seek.”

 

“I seek the Sampo and words of power beyond. I seek spells of great renown, canticles of might, power enough to free my father, liberate him from his fate,” Zatanna said, words flowing out of her like pearls rolling on a riverbed. There was something about this place that made plain words hard to say. “I was bade find the Sampo by Louhi, mistress of this hall, in exchange for his release.”

 

“I have heard tell of the Sampo,” Aino said, “stolen once, stolen twice and lost at sea. I have swam the seas far, the oceans wide and of the Sampo found no trace. Look elsewhere, for the Sampo wasn’t lost, search again, for the Sampo is found.”

 

The fish leapt out of the water and turned into a beautiful young woman. Her hair was long and ribbonless. She wore no cross on her breast nor jewels on her fingers. “In parting, I will give you these words,” she bended towards Zatanna and whispered in her ear, “a debt is not always settled between two people,” lower still, she added a few small enchantments. To Artemis, she said, “Seek my brother, Joukahainen of Suvantola.”

 

~*~

 

Step 7 to restore someone’s stolen property: Interrogate witnesses

 

Talking fishes were more Zatanna’s scene than Artemis’. Tracking down someone with barely a name though? That, Artemis could do, and do well.

 

They found Joukahainen in the woods. He looked like his sister, his bow trained on Zatanna despite the fact that Artemis’ was aimed at him. She was getting tired of being overlooked, but this was Zatanna's mission so she allowed it. This once, Zatanna lead the dance. She would owe Artemis one, which was always a good thing.

 

“It’s been a long time since anyone walked the woods of Pohjola, the forests of Sariola,” he said. Could he pick one? Was this place Pohjola or Sariola? “Longer still since mages of power, enchanters of great renown have traveled these paths. What do you seek?”

 

“Aino sent us,” Artemis said. Joukahainen relaxed visibly at that. “We’re looking for the Sampo.”

 

“Traitor Väinämöinen holds the Sampo still, through trickery and guile. He has left these shores long ago, for places far away, beyond the realms of Suomi he lives.” Joukahainen added, “I have made an enemy of Väinämöinen and he a nemesis of me. Let these arrows strike true and end all spells.”

 

He handed Artemis his quiver. She took it.

 

~*~

 

Step 8 to restore someone’s stolen property: Travel from shadowy mystical realm

 

Teleporting back to Gotham was a two time process. Zatanna first transported them to Helsinki, in front of the cathedral. Artemis recognised the cathedral from that time she had chased Cheshire through it.

 

They had a drink in a lovely little hole-in-the-wall place while Zatanna prepped for the next leg of their journey.

 

They arrived in Gotham at sunset.

 

The sky was the colour of new blood fading into old. The skyline was a ragged wound over the horizon. Artemis smiled. It was good to be home.

 

Gotham smiled back.

 

~*~

 

Step 9 to restore someone’s stolen property: Be contacted by master thief

 

Catwoman said, “I know where your thieves are.”

 

“How do you know?” Zatanna asked.

 

“Someone tried to fence gold that wasn’t gold and wasn’t fairygold,” she replied. At their eyebrows, she added, “All the fences check if the gold they get is fairygold. There are two tests: is it real gold? and is it fairygold? That wasn’t gold but it wasn’t fairygold either. That sounds like your sort of thing.”

 

“It does,” Artemis said. “Tell us where they are.”

 

Catwoman gave them an address in the financial quarter of Gotham and added to Artemis, “be sure to talk to Bruce.”

 

~*~

 

Step 10 to restore someone’s stolen property: Break into a building

 

“Isn’t this illegal?” Zatanna asked.

 

“Very,” Artemis supplied, halfway up the building. “Hand me that diamond cutter.”

 

The window opened easily and let them in. Artemis swung her torch around the room but saw no more security. That fitted with the floor plans Catwoman had given them: the security was bottom-heavy and top-heavy, with not much in between.

 

They searched the room.

 

Zatanna found the safe and Artemis opened it.

 

~*~

 

Step 11 to restore someone’s stolen property: Be washed off to alternate dimension

 

Artemis really hated dimensional travel. Hated it with a passion. Unexpected dimensional travel while half drunk and half hungover even more.

 

In a way, this dimension looked like the last one. The lay of the land was similar, except for the lack of buildings and the trees were the same. Except for the colour. Where the previous world had been all deep green, dark blues and black soot, this one is not.

 

This world was grey washing over grey. Thunder and lightning ripped apart the shuddering sky. Shadows drifted over the sun.

 

“Where are we?” Artemis just had time to ask before a giant eagle swooped down from the skies.

 

Correction. A giant mechanical eagle.

 

~*~

 

Step 12 to restore someone’s stolen property: Fight Giant Mechanical Eagle

 

It was official. Artemis hated giant eagles, mechanical ones most of all. She fired arrows after arrows at it. Joukahainen’s arrows chipped away at the shadow of life haunting its wings.

 

“Elgae, pots!” Zee shouted. “Etalsnart. We mean you no harm.”

 

“You invade my land, you come on his errand and you mean me no harm?” The eagle laughed. Eagles can’t laugh but apparently mechanical eagles could.

 

“Whose errand?” Artemis was not an errand girl and she wanted to know whose errand girl she wasn’t.

 

“Ilmarinen the smith,” the eagle said.

 

~*~

 

Step 13 to restore someone’s stolen property: Discuss dimensional travel with Giant Mechanical Eagle

 

“This realm was once Vainola, neighbour of Suvantola, bordering on Pohjola,” the eagle said.

 

“We’ve been there,” Artemis said. “They never said anything about an Ilmarinen, only about a Väinämöinen.”

 

“Vile Vaino, brother to the smith Ilmarinen, tore Vainola from the realms of Suomi and imprisoned me in its ruined shadows.” The eagle looked as furious as a giant mechanical eagle could. “Bring me revenge and I will help you.”

 

”Revenge?” Artemis asked.

 

“I can give you revenge,” Zatanna said, “but it will take time.”

 

“You lie. You wish to win time and never return. Unmoor this realm from its prison and return it to its rightful place.”

 

Zatanna agreed. The pocket dimension the eagle lived in - Vainola - was an integral part of the safe’s security system. Returning it to its rightful place would alert Väinämöinen but no doubt he already knew.

 

Zatanna sat down and started the necessary alignment calculations. The man who made the pocket dimension had not done a very good job of it. Left untouched, it will stay this way forever, but it doesn’t take much more than a push to detach it.

 

“Og,” Zatanna said and the dimension snapped back into place like a yo-yo on a string.

 

“Thank you,” the eagle said. It flew off into the sky over Pohjola, into the clouds of Sariola.

 

~*~

 

Step 14 to restore someone’s stolen property: Confront the thieves

 

They return to the building to face two men, who look somewhat related. One of them is as old as if he had been born old and only grown older still.

 

“Who the fuck are you people?” Artemis asked.

 

“I am the smith Ilmarinen,” said the young(er) one, “who brought forth the sky and stars.” Which, yeah right.

 

The old one has parchment-thin skin, blotted with age. “I am Väinämöinen. You must be the child Zatanna.”

 

Zatanna leaned over and said to Artemis, “I hate it when they call me that. I’m not twelve.”

 

”But you were once,” said Väinämöinen.

 

That got him a raised eyebrow from Artemis. She couldn’t see Zee’s face, but she must have worn a similar expression. ”Wasn’t everyone?”

 

Väinämöinen said, ”I never was.” Artemis shivered. Bring on the creepy.

 

~*~

Step 15 to restore someone’s stolen property: Fight the thieves

 

“Return the Sampo to Louhi and we’ll leave you alone,” Artemis said.

 

“No,” said Ilmarinen.

 

Artemis had really wanted this to be an easy mission, but maybe the talking fish and the giant mechanical eagle should have clued her in that it wasn’t. She drew back her arm and aimed the arrow at Väinämöinen’s shoulder.

 

The ground beneath her feet turned into a bog at Väinämöinen’s song. She let loose the arrow and stabbed the next one at the ground. Joukahainen’s arrow broke through the enchantment viciously and Artemis’ boots ended up fused with the concrete.

 

She kicked them off and launched forward to punch Ilmarinen in the face.

 

Zatanna’s voice clashed with Väinämöinen’s, contralto facing baritone. Zatanna was losing, her voice faltering, notes dropped and words forgotten.

 

Artemis followed the punch by stepping on Ilmarinen’s foot, which wasn’t the smartest idea while in her socks. There was still a satisfying popping sensation under the bruise forming on Artemis’ heel.

 

Zatanna dropped the song.

 

Artemis spun on her heel to bring the other foot slamming into his knee.

 

Väinämöinen smiled and tried to sing Zatanna into quicksand. Zee drove her elbow into his stomach, cutting off his air supply. She drove her hand up and broke his jaws.

 

Easily broken bones must have run in the family.

 

~*~

 

Step 16 to restore someone’s stolen property: Interrogate thieves

 

Artemis poked at her boots with her toe. “Damn, I liked those shoes.”

 

“Llet su gnihtyreve,” Zatanna said. “Where is the Sampo?”

 

Väinämöinen struggles to speak. Ilmarinen coughs up the location easily enough. After everything it took to get there, it’s a bit of a disappointment. He was lying of course, but still. He told them the Sampo lied in a far off land by the name of Switzerland.

 

Artemis still checked the safe and there it was. A tiny, bejewelled thing that looked like an overgrown pill-box and glowed eerily in the dim light. It hummed under her fingers. There was a crusted ring of salt around one of the openings. When she dragged her fingers around the Sampo, they came away silver and gold.

 

“Got it,” she told Zatanna.

 

“Good,” Zatanna said. Turning to Ilmarinen and Väinämöinen, she added, “I’m letting you go this time. The next time we meet, I will bring down judgement unto you, like the wrath of an angry god.”

 

She would too, Artemis had seen her do it, power burning through her like Doctor Fate without the mask.

 

~*~

 

Step 17 to restore someone’s stolen property: Congratulate yourself on a job well done

 

Zatanna high fived Artemis, because it seemed like the thing to do and she was a little bit drunk still.

 

She teleported them away to her house just before Artemis let go. The Sampo shimmered many-coloured light, its lid rainbow hued. When Artemis handed it to her, it was as light as swan-feathers, as weightless as a single grain of barley. Though it looked made of milky-white gold, it was as soft as the finest lambskin wool. Magic rippled through the metal, spells dancing across the stones.

 

It was utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful and Zatanna wanted nothing more than to smash it against the wall.

 

Her hand curled around it, nails gripping in the engraving.

 

“I would rather you did not,” Louhi said.

 

~*~

  
  
  


Step 18 to restore someone’s stolen property: Re-contact the appropriate authorities

 

“If you would return my property to me, I would return yours to you,” Louhi continued.

 

Zatanna really needed  to upgrade the wards on her house. “I think not. Though his body was stolen from him, my father is not property and I will not have him in your debt. You will teach me all you know, all the spells, every cantrip, each incantation, everything, the sum of your knowledge. You will teach me all that you know and I will return to you the Sampo.”

 

Louhi snarled, teeth like fangs and nails like talons. “And if I did? What would you do with the knowledge of what's coming, the deaths in your future, fear, war and betrayal? What would you do, seeing your friends cut down and knowing you could have stopped it, but did not?”

 

“I would stop them,” Zatanna said. She raised the Sampo high over her head. “How much is this worth to you?”

 

“Do not say I did not warn you.” Louhi pitches her voice low and starts singing, a rising crescendo of magic, a symphony of enchantments. Her song wrapped around Zatanna like a cocoon, whispers of war and susurrations of strife peering out around the edges. Insinuations of insincerity slithered down her ears and into her brain painting crusade landscape on the inside of her head.

 

“Enough,” Zatanna screamed, clasping her hands over her ears, dropping the Sampo as she did. The rumors of ravage pressed on, heard more by her bones than by her ears. Murmurs of murders wrote themselves into her flesh and hints of havoc carved themselves around her heart.

 

Louhi picks up the Sampo, reflected colours whirling over her palm and leaves.

 

~*~

 

Step 19 to restore someone’s stolen property: Don’t get paid properly

 

Zatanna’s head is ringing, glimmers of guile and omens of onslaught fading away into the dark, leaving her skull hollow like a war drum.

 

Artemis unfroze from her spot by the couch and went to help her up.

 

“Did it work?” she asked.

 

“Yes,” Zatanna said. she opened her hand and there sat the Sampo, glimmering lights flickering. “I know how to save my father.”

 

She did not say anything about what was coming. In truth, she remembered almost none of it, save for Aino’s cantrips. A child she may be and human besides but stupid she was not.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Women turning into fishes and giant mechanical eagles are Kalevala canon. Pohjola and Sariola are two names for the same place and the Sampo can churn out endless salt, flour and money.


End file.
